Becca is yet another member that has returned to us, and was sorely missed in her absence. As much a part of the family as though she'd been here from the very beginning. She's always welcoming, always kind and supportive, and most importantly ready to offer all the magical feels-breaking plots you could ever ask for. So don't forget to show her your love next time you see her!

Welcome to ENDLESS DIAMOND SKY! We are an animation personified site set both in the animated world and present day San Francisco. A terrible darkness is spreading through the animated realm, driving everyone from their homes and into unknown territory that we know as reality. Now they find themselves at a crossroads: do they fight for their world or do they turn their back on it and make San Francisco their home? What will you choose?

setting san francisco, calif. 2018

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EDS is known to cause death by soul-crushing feels. Don't forget your feels bucket.

my whole life i've felt like a burden,
i think too much & i hate it -------

The trees of the forest creaked and moaned in such a mournful way. Their ancient voices crying against the freezing wind, their branches shaking as if their whole bodies grieved for what once was. Naked as they were, their limbs barren of leaves now that autumn had fully set into this world, they cast almost frightening shadows across one another. The moon above, a full orb of brilliant white, made such shadows all the more menacing for the contrast of light across the forest floor. It was not a night one would wish to find themselves wandering alone, for the beasties that roamed such places lurked in the darkened crevices and nooks within roots waiting. Waiting for something to claim. Calix Brenhin could smell them, tucked as he was in a nook of a sturdy old oak. For once not in any other form but his own, long legs stretched out across the wide branch in front of him. Arms wrapped around his middle for warmth, he was, oddly enough, trying to sleep. He felt a sort of a calm in the weeping forest, his soul not at peace but in tandem with its sadness. The Lord of the Night Court felt a kindredness with this forest, its grief reaching out towards his own like a hand offered in darkness that otherwise would not have been accepted without such shadows as these. It was harder to escape such things in the light, so as best not acknowledge it at all and keep it hidden, buried, allowing it only in those moments that the moon bore sole witness to.

Yes, he was attempting to sleep in his makeshift nest — too small to house his body fully but sturdy still enough that he need not hide within the feathered, taloned body that was his preference when he was of a mind to conceal his true nature. Still, he was not without his limits. Limitations of his power since his world’s destruction aside, he did not want to forget what it was to be himself, truly, in this skin that often felt too constricting and bothersome. It was much the same now though in a more muted sense. He neither wanted to be within this cage of muscle and bone nor desired overmuch to be without it. In all honesty, there was strength in the claim that he sometimes, occasionally, enjoyed his own misery too much to seek escape. It was one of the last few indulgences whose gild hadn’t rusted and faded away with time and too much use. Soon enough, he would grow tired of himself again and seek other avenues of distraction. There had not yet come a time where he did not grow exhausted with mad turnings of his mind or the delicious guilt that accompanied self-loathing. His life had, from birth to present, encompassed a great expanse of years from which to dissect every mistake from the minor to the most disparate. How many times, on this occasion, could he turn over every event that had led him here before the effect was spent? Even such bitterness lost its flavor with too much chewing.

Yes, yes, he was attempting to sleep. It had been quite some time since he had been able to do so restfully. Perhaps not since before he’d assumed the seat of High Lordship of his court. Likely longer still if he really thought about it. Once, when he was still young and not yet the collector of a thousand grievances against his conscience, he used to enjoy sleep. Back then, he had been of the opinion that there were only three ideal ways to escape oneself: a bottle of liquor, the arms of a lover, and a good sleep. Better still if one could manage all three. Best if one could do so in that order. In the time since the darkness had rent his world apart, he’d managed at least two of those things on a fairly regular basis. For a time, anyway. Now it seemed he was either completely loaded or spending so much time in the form of another beast as to have nearly forgotten his reasoning of being so. Only nearly, for like every other sort of high, it always ended and he would return right back to his current position. That is to say, aimless and frustrated and just distracted enough to prevent any viable plans for the future from taking shape. What had he to show for in the last year and a half but a few meager associations whose usability had not yet panned out and not a even a whisper that any of his court had survived that last destructive attack on their world?

For the first time, the latter did not sting as much as it had been wont to do and the Night Lord took notice. He blamed the aforementioned distraction for pulling his focus so severely as to have distanced himself from the vow he had made the night he escaped. Only a temporary one, he reminded himself. And a fleeting one if his current machinations to get her attention failed. Given how much time had already passed between when he had sent the letter and now, Calix was persuaded to believe that he would never receive an answer at all. If so, it was doubtless for the best. There were plenty other things he ought to be doing than chasing a taciturn sprite determined to block him at every pass. Even so, the stagnancy of that game had nothing at all to do with his current despondence except in its contribution to frustration, mayhap. Giving up on sleep now, the fae sighed heavily and leaned his head back against the trunk of the tree. He was only sat there like that but a moment when he heard it. Or rather, didn’t hear it.

The animals, touched by darkness as they were, that had been seething in the shadows since he had entered their midsts suddenly hushed. It was unnervingly quiet, saving for the now subtle creaking of trees in a wind a that seemed to sense the difference in the atmosphere and quiet its rage in response. Gold flared in his eyes as he tilted his head to listen harder to the forest around him...a light crack and then a shuffle. Almost undetectable, like careful steps muffled by soft earth. In a blink, Calix was standing on the limb he’d been sitting on and, another instant later, flocked to a higher branch to observe the world below in the form of a raven. Whatever it was had drawn the forest’s attention and it sent his instincts whirring, melancholy replaced by anticipation.

This was a mistake. A rather large—gods above this could cost you your life Wren—mistake. Not that the heavy cost truly resonated with the young huntress, as she was fated to be not long in this world, but to end like this—not by the jaws of her greatest enemy, thus finishing his thwarted plan and closing the fated circle but instead because of her own foolishness…it would be humorous had she remembered how to find the humor in things. Laughter had quickly become as foreign to her as the woods she now walked in, leaves crunching under her doeskin boots. But woods were woods, and despite her foolishness or her near empty-headedness (some of which she was sure could be attributed to the cold but most of it was due to her current outlook on life) her instincts wouldn't abandon her so easily. While she was able to quiet their nagging during the light of day, she was unable to do so under the cover of darkness. Cloak bound tightly around her shoulders—hood and all—the young girl made her way through the shadows as quickly and as quietly as she could. Sleep wouldn't come to her tonight, not that it had come on any other night since whatever remained of her heart had been shattered and the pieces trampled into the ground by the hulking paws of her oldest foe. These woods weren’t her own. They housed beasts of a differing kind, ones without reasoning minds or the pull of instinctual fears. These beasts, touched by the darkness that destroyed countless worlds, instead of hiding within their burrows watched with hunger glimmering in their eyes. They waited. Waited for any sign of weakness or distraction, and though dead eyed, the young huntress’ heart beat within her chest like a frightened caged bird. Not yet, it cried, our time has not come.

It along with the engraved instincts of days gone by would keep her from meeting her fate at the jaws of the wrong hungry beast.

While no bow or quiver rested across her back, she was still unable to enter that quiet place that allowed her to shoot with any sort of skill, she had taken an old friend's advice and come armed with a small knife. What good it would do against tooth and claw she didn't know but at least that was one worry she could check off her list. That, along with what little protection—if any—her cloak could afford her would have to be enough. She just had to last until the fickleness of the portal wore off. Or until the dawn's light broke through the horizon. Her mother's clichéd words of, everything will look better in the morning, came back to her on the chilling wind like the mocking caw of a crow. Everything would not look better in the morning. There was no magic contained within the sun's first rays that would vanish away her problems or remake what was broken inside her. Still, at least in the morning she could see what was stalking her in the shadows. Instead, the moonlight made monsters out of tangled tree limbs and ghostly cries out of a breath of wind.

Yet still, she trudged forward, as quiet as she could be—unable to fully count on the cloak’s magic to muffle her steps. Scarcely taking a breath, taking each step as if it were her last…until a twig snapped under her boot. Wren's breath whooshed out of her almost as if it were forcibly pressed from her lungs. A quietly hissed, “Fuck,” escaped before she had a hope of stopping it. Still yet, she froze, feeling hundreds of unseen eyes flock in her direction. She could feel the judgement in their gaze, harsh and unforgiving, reminding her that she didn't belong here. She intruded where she was not wanted, and despite the wildness that sang in her blood, the truth was she was still human. Prey to whatever beasts lurked in the shadows here. Nothing would save her should the forest turn against her. There was no majestic hope of a wise wolf leaping from the shadows to avenge her—a once imagined warrior maiden of her Woods. This wasn't a dream or a fairytale, this had the harsh dark tang of reality and reality was a far crueler mistress. Moonlight kissed her cheeks as she dared to peer around the cover that her hood afforded her, but the girl saw no cause for farther hesitation. Whatever lurked here, whatever presence did not approve of her intrusive appearance here, had seemingly looked the other way at her misgivings. Still, the hour was late, and one more foolish misstep could cost her far more than she was willing to pay.

She needed a place to lay low. At least until she could catch her breath and see her path before her. Sleep or no sleep, a breather would be nice. A fire was impossible. It would only draw more attention to her than she wanted and the thought of angering whatever beast or spirit here seemed foolish. But without a fire the forest floor was too dangerous. It would be too easy to be snuck upon and there would be little time to run. The sturdy oak seemed her best bet. She'd lash herself to a thick branch and wait it out. Whatever hid amongst its leafless branches would be more welcome than a larger shadowy beast. Thankfully, there was a low enough branch that with a bit of graceless finagling, she was able to clamber up on and from there, with nothing more than a few scrapes for her trouble. Perched nearby was a raven who regarded her with a curious eye. He seemed intrigued but not overly pleased with her intrusion to his home. Still, he didn't out right attack her, which gave her a precious bit of hope. “Hello there,” she whispered digging within the pockets of her cloak for something to offer her host, “I'm sorry to barge in uninvited but I'm quite lost and a bit afraid of going any farther tonight.” Finding a bag of Greta's peanut butter cookies, she visibly relaxed. At least she could offer him something besides meaningless conversation. “Would you consider taking my paltry offering as a penance for my intrusion? Heaven knows I could use someone as clever as you as my friend rather than a foe. You could probably fly these woods blindfolded in a snowstorm and still make it farther than I can.” Her quiet whispers still sounded hollow to her ears and her voice cracked from disuse but in all her speech to the stately raven was the longest conversation she had participated in for longer than she cared to admit. Perhaps it was the fact that he wouldn't be speaking back to her that caused the rusty hinges of her mouth to fly open or it was exhaustion and sleep deprivation that caused her to babble. But regardless of the reason, a ghost of a smile formed slightly on her face as she broke off a generous chunk of cookie and held it out before him. Whether or not he would take it from her hand was entirely up to him. But she was proud of them both for getting this far.

my whole life i've felt like a burden,
i think too much & i hate it -------

Calix was more at home among the groaning trees and the stilted shadows cast by their crooked limbs than most other places in recent memory. He felt the damp mist rising from the ground, the earth releasing the last if it’s warmth into the night, as layered across his skin like a specter’s kiss. The beasts that roamed such places were not foreign to him. Attuned as he was into his own animalistic nature, his being as linked with the earth as it was the stars above his head, felt a kinship with the predators that roamed the world at night. He understood them in a way most others likely didn’t. Their hunger was his hunger, their fury alike his own. That instinctive fight for survival regardless of whether there was anything worthy left in doing so. There hardly ever was. At least for him. And yet whenever he felt close to that bitter edge between life and what lay beyond, that animal in him held on, talons to stone, feathers and blood, all fighting to remain.

A contrariness, to be sure, when that sudden rush of adrenaline was all he seemed to seek out these days. He was never so bereft as when that feeling left again and the grief returned, seething like an inky mass rising to the surface to drag him down again. Even flying, an activity that had at once both cleared his head and reminded him that his heart still beat because he chose it too, had lost most of its effect on him. More often than not, he found himself flying in lazy, melancholic circles under the guise of search. Every time he could not find what he sought (only a nebulous list with more possibilities than firm ideas) said search grew more hopeless. A vicious cycle of fury and loss, his brain twisting and turning down darker paths than even he had tread before in his long lifetime. Was it the continued effect of that negative power that had already destroyed and consumed his world as it had been? Breaking it down first in order to savor that destruction and he was the dessert? The last course in the feast it had made of his court, malicious in its intent to force him to watch it first before his fate came to him? If he wasn’t also certain that this darkness was not so discretionary, not so sentient, as all that, Calix might have believed it so.

His thoughts had swirled about him like a cloud, oscillating between the maudlin leanings and then frustration when they turned towards the goings-on across the bridge in that city of poisonous iron and contrary beings who challenged him. Only the moonlight breaking through every now and again to remind him also of snow-white skin and dark eyes and other such trivial things that ought not to be diverting his attention but were. It was that shift in the air, the way the trees whine against a wind that changed direction despite the sky being clear as glass and fathomless above, that had brought him back to the present moment. When the living world amongst the shadows around him settled into a heavy, pregnant silence so out of place in a forest even in a nocturnal state. The monsters that came alive at night were still, focused. Too focused on something he couldn’t yet see. The flooding of magic that filled his veins during the change made his eyes burn brightly gold. Strange in his usual form but stranger still within the shape of the scavenger bird. They stared out into the night around him, through naked branches and shadow, as he waited. Cal settled and resettled his wings along his avian torso, feathers trying and failing to fall into place uneasy as he was. Talons clenched along the branch, digging into the oak, in anticipation of flight were it necessary.

Whatever he was expecting to see, it was most definitely far from the red-hooded child that appeared in the brush. With the brightness of the night, they were easy to spot -- the scarlet of their cloak illuminated by the moon almost like a beacon. A surprising (or perhaps, unfortunate) choice in ensemble for an evening stroll through the woods, he thought drily to himself. His eyes tracked the youngling to below his tree and widened, hopping along to branch to further watch as they scrambled up in such a gawky, unrefined was as to almost be amusing. Then they got too close, invading the space he had already claimed for himself and he let out a curt squawk to announce his presence. Getting a good look at the child revealed them to be a girl and such a small one at that the fae was taken aback. Several questions entered his brain, each clamoring for attention, but the most insistent was focused on what it was she held in her hand. A package of something or other he heard her call an offering. Offering. He liked the sound of that -- against his will, he told himself stolidly.

”Not in a snow storm,” he amended, his voice through the throat of a raven something coarse and rough with disuse. When was the last time he had spoken while in that form? Too long for him to remember and he was surprised to find a use for it now. Cal had always felt frustrated by the limited ability available to his favored creatures. He preferred his words to be well-spoken, their connotations layered within tone. The voice of a bird made such a thing impossible. It shortened his sentences to something more direct than he was used to being and removed the aspect of intention from being placed on words -- of which were often monosyllabic and simple. His head tilted to one side and then another as he examined the broken bit of something she held towards him now. Hopping forward, he shifted a wing, tucking the other close to his body. Looking from her hand to her face and back again. ”What is it?”